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Welcome to make more money without selling your soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome to the show. Today I am talking to you about, oh my goodness, this episode is genuinely going to change your life if you’re not already doing this, which, let’s face it, if you’re listening to this episode, it indicates there is a lack of clarity that you currently feel around what you should be focusing on and when and what is the best way to get really clear on your goals and create an action plan that’s genuinely going to get you there. Now I have a wonderful free resource, which you can get your hands on. The link is in the show notes, which will support you as you listen to this episode. But do know that if you’re driving or out and about having a walk, you don’t need to be looking at this resource at the same time to get a huge amount of benefit from listening to this episode. Okay, there’s still so much to gain just from listening. In fact, for some people, they might prefer to listen before they think about sitting down with a resource. So let’s get into it. Shall we? Okay, here’s one of the biggest things I see holding back a lot of online business owners, distraction. Why do we get distracted? Because we don’t know what we should be focusing on. We haven’t got a solid sense of vindication that this is what we need to be focusing on. Okay, what that looks like is if we’re scrolling Instagram, or if we’re doing our thing of sharing something on some social media platform. But Instagram, Facebook, are particularly guilty of this, getting distracted by an advert, an advert that says you should be learning how to generate 1000 reels a month, or you should be focusing on your systems. And of course, marketing is designed to activate you, which means it will speak to a pain point, which is probably relevant for you. It’s like, well, how to create more time? Have more systems. Who doesn’t want more time? Of course, you’re going to pay attention. Want more visibility. Create 1000 reels like they’ll speak to something that is true for you and your situation, that will then pull you in and leave you probably feeling really overwhelmed. And this is particularly relevant to those who were earlier on in business. I find those who’ve been in business longer have been burnt enough times, spent enough money on investments that didn’t quite work out or didn’t do what they needed them to do. But we can be very vulnerable if we’re at a kind of junction in life, in business, where we have hit a plateau, it can be particularly tempting to kind of go off piste and do something entirely different to what we’ve been doing already, because we’re like, Well, what we’re doing already isn’t working, and that can actually enormously slow you down. One of the themes I’ve been talking about a lot recently across all channels, is the danger of burning things down rather than refining them.

So the purpose of today’s episode is to help you get clarity on how to create goals specific for you and your business. Because the problem is the person out there who’s saying, here’s how to get more time have systems. Yes, that could be really relevant for the business owner who’s making sales with a lot of ease. You know, a lot of my clients are in this predicament where sales is not an issue. Their funnel is ticking over. What’s the thing they need to be focusing on? Probably updating their a table system so that they’re more automated and more efficient is a great use of their time for the business owner who’s still not really clear on what their offer is, and they’re not making consistent sales, spending time and energy creating systems to deal with a demand that you haven’t created yet is not the best use of your time, okay? And this is a challenge of what happens where we outsource our power to other people to tell us what we need to be doing, because ultimately, any business is going to be relatively self serving. So this episode, my friends, is a little weapon in your arsenary make decisions specific for you, your priorities and your zone of genius, where you really get to shine. You know, if you’re an amazing writer, you should probably be focusing on sub stack rather than reels. But, you know, this is the other challenge of where we see somebody promoting something, saying this is the thing that’s going to change the game for you, again, maybe not specifically for you. Yeah. So anyway, let’s dive into this. Okay? Because this is so breathtakingly simple that once you know it, you can’t forget it, and it will really help you, whether you’re planning quarter to quarter or year to year. It’s going to give you so much more ease, and you’ll never have a day again where you sit down and think, what should I be focusing on? It will be crystal clear.

Okay, so when we are creating goals, what do we always start with? We start with the sum of money we’d like to be making. Now I’ll probably do a separate episode on what it looks like in terms of getting clear on what that number should be. I did actually want to create a mini free training. I might make that available again, but for now, I’m going to shelf that idea. If you want that, by the way, message me say, Paul, a I want that training on how to get clear on the number I want. But let’s say you have recognized, after paying your taxes, after paying a consistent salary to yourself, a generous one at that after, you know, maybe paying yourself whatever I say, generous salary, maybe it’s salary plus dividends, whatever it is, whatever capacity it is that you’re paying yourself in after recognizing what you want to be paying your team so that you are adequately supported after you know what budget you’d like to be putting aside for advertising or, you know, marketing or sponsorship, or whatever things you’re doing to increase your visibility that aren’t relying purely on organic marketing. Anyway, once you’ve totted all those things up together, get clear on the number. Now, why am I saying that and not just saying go for seven figures? Because I find that unhelpful. I find that when we are actually clear on the money we want, and we’re actually clear on what genuinely is going to make a difference for us, that we’re just far more likely to get there. You know, if we’re just going for seven figures, for seven figures sake, you’re not probably really even doing that for you. You’re doing that because of what everyone else on the internet has told you, seven figures looks like. Okay, that’s not helpful and unnecessary. You know, me aimlessly going after numbers is how I ended up with an enormous team. Because everyone else who had was making loads of money had an enormous team and quickly recognized I didn’t enjoy running an enormous team, and now I have bigger profit margins with a much leaner team. So it’s, you know, really important to understand what success looks and feels like to you. So take some time to get clear on your number.

Now, the next phase, which is equally important, is recognizing what does that look like in terms of numbers of sales. This is really, really important, okay? And I often encourage my clients at this stage to think about their mid ticket and high ticket offers, not necessarily low ticket offers, because low ticket offers, I kind of see as a way for us to bring down your ad spend later on. You know, nice little comfy trip wire. But if you think about your mid ticket and high ticket offers, how many of those do you need to sell to hit that number? Again, specificity is really helpful, because it enables you to compare the number of sales you need to make to hit your target in comparison to what you’re selling right now, which will also give you a huge indication as to Does this mean we just need to fine tune and tweak what we’re doing already to, you know, like, elevate what we’re doing. So say, for example, you’re spending 1000 pounds with ads and making 20,000 a month. Like one of my clients is bloody hell. I know, you know, she could just make the decision next year. She’s already got the sales team in place. She’s got the systems for onboarding. She’s got an infinitely scalable program. She could just simply decide to double her ad spend, probably not overnight. Should probably ramp it up gradually, but she could simply decide to do that to make double the sales. So again, this is where your predicament has such a significant impact on your goals, but it’s useful to know how many sales do you need to make per month. This also enables you to think as big as you desire, because it’s really only the next two steps that we’re going to be looking at that have a big impact on whether you feel like, yes, let’s freaking go, or whether you’re like, maybe I need to revise it somewhat. Okay, so revenue and number of sales you need to generate to hit that revenue is where we’re starting. So let’s, for example, say you had a 2000 pound offer that you wanted to sell 50 of to make 100,000 pounds. I’m really hoping my maths is correct here, because my mental maths is diabolic cool. But anyway, so let’s say that’s what you wanted to do. We wanted to get 50 sales. Now I’ve obviously gone with a smaller number here, but I’m just trying to hit something somewhere in the middle. But 50 sales, I mean, there could be five grand, and then suddenly we’re looking at 250k a year. They could be 10k and we’re looking at like a half a million, yeah, whatever, 50 sales. Now, what I know to be true is whether you’re selling a 3000 pound offer or 10,000 pound offer, you need the same number of leads. It’s that simple.

So when you’re thinking about what you want to be focusing on selling, I would take that into consideration too. But on to step two. Now we know how many sales we want to generate. Step two is recognizing how many subscribers, how many leads do I need if I was converting an average of one to 3% And let’s go conservative and say 1% how many leads do I need to bring into my business this year to make 50 sales? So if we’re, if you just imagine, this is a little visual map with me. On the very left hand side of the kind of we’ve got three squares going across the page. On the very left hand side, we’ve got your revenue, and we’ve got the number of offers. The middle square is your leads slash subscribers. So who’s joining your mailing list? And you know, looking at if we were converting 1% of those leads. So let’s you want 50 sales. How many more leads do you need in your business to create 50 new sales? So if we’re going conservatively, with 1% that would be 5000 now for those of you who are already tracking your data and already know your average conversion rate, this is where you can look at that data and be like, actually, my conversion rate is above average. It’s usually closer to 5% even with cold leads. So I’m going to confidently say, actually, I need less leads than that. Or, you know, my process is so good with my direct outreach and DMS and all the other things I’m doing alongside my conversion rate is whatever. Okay, so I like to start conservatively. If we don’t have data we’re working with, if you have data you’re working with and you know your average conversion rate, of course you can take that. Not even Of course you can. I would encourage you to take that into consideration when you’re thinking about how many leads you need. Okay, it does look different business to business, but anyway, so 5000 leads on your mailing list. Now take a moment to think about how many people do you have currently on your mailing list. One thing I find that’s super eye opening for my clients is looking at how many sales they’ve made in comparison to their mailing list. And usually they’re like, Wow, I can see why I’m struggling to make more sales, because I’ve already rinsed well beyond one to 5% of my mailing list, as it currently stands. And it totally makes sense, rather than hoping the other, I don’t know, 900 convert, that I focus on bringing more people into my world. Okay, so that’s step number two. We’re recognizing 50 sales requires 5000 leads. Now here comes the fun part. Now we’re thinking, okay, so obviously, like I’ve said, I encourage you to think about, well, what are you doing already in your business that’s bringing in leads? If you’re like, Well, you know what? We already have systems set up, ads running or visibility strategies, podcast touring, etc. Set up, which, on average, has bought in 5000 leads a year. Then you laughing, then actually you should probably be thinking about stretching that goal. If you’re like, holy prick, moly, I’ve got 500 to 1000 people on my mailing list, and now I need 5000 what does that look like? You know that would be an invitation to explore whether you want to be focusing on the current offer that you’re focusing on, and whether, if you want, if you know, if you’re not trusting in your ability to bring in a significantly larger number of leads, or if it’s just not something that you have the capacity for right now, you may want to look at how you can charge less of a more high ticket offer, just putting it out there. But I will also say everyone has got the capacity to attract more leads. I mean, I say everyone, nearly everyone, has the capacity to attract more leads.

There, obviously some people who may be in predicaments that make that challenging, but if you are an active online business owner, I would encourage you to look for a strategy that allows you to attract more leads, because more leads is always a good idea. Like, what’s the simplest way to make more sales, attract more leads? I see so many people spinning their wheels over their messaging and positioning and their offer, thinking there’s something wrong with any of those things where it’s simply a matter of volume, you know, I audit their business, or, you know that we have a discovery call chat, and I’m looking at their business. I’m like, yes, there’s things that can be done to refine your offer suite, but the main issue is that you’re just not visible enough right now. Enough people just simply don’t know about you and your offer, and as soon as you do that, you will see more sales. Okay, so what are we doing to attract those leads? Now this is where it gets exciting. One of the things I mentioned at my recent mastermind day was, you know, it’s not enough anymore for us to just solely be focusing on social media and ensuring we’re doing our whatever, three to five posts a week on whichever platform. And you know, doing lives, you need to be thinking bigger, because simply standing on a stage, simply getting on someone else’s podcast, can like, when we’re thinking about impact of our actions, getting on someone’s podcast is going to have so much more impact on your business than you spending two hours creating a reel. So it’s really, really important that we think about what are the things you can be focusing on in your business to be growing your list all the time. So I mean, obviously one of the things you need to take into consideration when you’re thinking about growing your list, it’s not just visibility. You’re also thinking about what freebie funnel, for example, will motivate people when they come into your world to want to be in it. How often are you making those invitations already? There’s a few factors that we can be considering as to. What you can be doing more efficiently to grow your list faster, but you’re essentially looking at your business through the lens of three things, a, revenue and how many offers need to be sold. B, how many leads do you need to make those sales? And then C, what strategies are you currently deploying that support that goal, and obviously dependent on what you’re doing already, and whether it’s a minor tweak or whether it’s a massive overhaul. In terms of if you’ve been doing things that have not moved the needle enough, you then need to be looking at, what are the bigger needle movers you can be doing in your business to make this part of your business more efficient, so that you’re not spinning your wheels over Oh, should I call myself a wellbeing coach or a happiness coach like that stuff. It matters to a certain extent, and then it also just really doesn’t at all. You know, the moment someone hears somebody, let’s say a guest on my podcast, talking to me, they don’t care if you’re a happiness coach or a wellbeing coach, they’re interested in your unique take on your industry. They’re interested in the unique problem you solve.

They’re interested in you. People buy from relationships, not from words. You can come across sassy, cool, clever, but ultimately, they’re choosing you. That’s why my podcast has been one of the best generators of totally aligned clients, because people who come in and like what I put down and want to pick it up are, you know, they already know. They know what they’re coming in for. Okay, so that’s basically it. Consider always those three pieces in your business, the revenue you desire, how many offers you need to sell, the number of leads you need, and then the visibility strategies required to get you those leads. And obviously, you know, when you also think about your leads, what funnel is required to get you there? Okay? And what’s beautiful about what I’m sharing with you is it doesn’t matter if you’re planning on live launching this year. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning on having a solely evergreen business this year. It doesn’t matter about any of those things. This is totally relevant regardless. Okay. And equally, when you think about your needle movers, it may be that you recognize, oh my goodness, there’s a huge opportunity for me on sub stack. I need to give more of my attention to sub stack. It could also be that you recognize, oh my goodness, everyone’s always saying how great I am as a speaker. I need to get on more podcasts.

Or I am actually, finally going to put myself forward to get on that stage, but work with your own zone of genius. Don’t spend your time scrolling on Instagram, waiting for some guru to say, I am the person to save you. Really recognize where your unique opportunity is, where your unfair advantage is. We all have it somewhere. We all have something, and oftentimes we ignore it because it feels too easy. Okay, do not ignore it, because I guarantee you whatever you decide you need to do to get the number of leads in that you want to get, chances are it will only get 30% of what you need. So you need to think big. You need to work with your unfair advantages. Sounds awful, but it’s true, and when I talk about unfair advantage, advantages, I mean the person who’s so introverted they can’t say a word on a podcast, but they’ll happily write incredibly thought provoking, long essays. Work with those essays for the person who cannot tidy up their ideas enough to put them down in a document, but they can show up and record a podcast like I am right now, record more podcasts, create a private podcast as your freebie, you know, for the person who is a massive extrovert, who has no fear about getting on stages, and perhaps is ignoring it because it feels too easy, make this year the year that you get on a stage. But the most important piece is what I see in the people who really succeed in business is an acute awareness of where their weaknesses are, and leaning into support that’s going to help them to get to where they need to be.

Okay. So there we have it. And if you’re like, oh my gosh, Polly, this is a lot of information. I’m a very visual person. I need something to look at. Well, good news. Simply use the link in the show notes, and it will get you the free guide, which also comes with its own mini free video guide to explain how to use it, and you can map out your own quarter. So yeah, dive into that, because it is so potent, so powerful, and it means you’ll never, ever have a day again where you sit down and go, I don’t know what to be focusing on. It’s also going to elevate the conversations you have with your mentors or coaches, because it means when you have a conversation with them rather than hoping that they’ll have the answer for you. You can come to them and say, I know this is the number of leads I need. These are the things I feel. Are my unique opportunities. How do you feel? I should, you know, double down on these to make them work even better for me. Okay, cool. I think that’s it. That’s all I have to say. I’ll be back next week with a guest episode. If you are new to the show, just to keep you in the loop, it’s pretty much a solo episode once every other week. So if you like this solo episode, simply go back to episodes, and if you enjoy listening to guests, I regularly invite on guests who bring something fresh and new and different to the online business space to help you with my mission of a. Option for you, which is to have cushy business, one that is simple, one that is spacious, one that feels so good it’s almost embarrassing, fabulous. Okay, that’s all I have to say. If you enjoyed this episode, please do rate it or review it, or do any of those things. It really helps my podcast reach as many ears as possible. And I hope you enjoy my freebie. Do go check it out in the show notes.